Niche blogging

Niche blogging (CanE, UK /ˈniːʃ/ or US /ˈnɪtʃ/)^[1] is the act of creating a blog with the intent of using it to market to a particular niche market. While it could be argued that every blog is, in some form, a niche blog, the term as it applies to marketing refers to a particular kind of blog.

Neither blogging nor niche marketing is a new concept. However, only in recent years has the concept of a niche blog come into being.

Usually, niche blogs will contain advertisements of some sort (pay-per-click or products or both). In some cases, the purpose of the niche blog is to incite the reader into visiting another website which may then attempt to sell the reader a product or service.

Niche blogs are sometimes referred to as splogs, but this is a misnomer. Even though the desired end result for the niche blogger is to make money, the niche blog itself often contains valuable information. Most pay-per-click advertising is content-sensitive, so it is vital to the niche blogger to have useful content that is related to the chosen niche.

Features of niche blogging

The popularity of niche blogging among new marketers can be attributed to several factors, including cost, adaptability and generating traffic.

Cost

Any free platform like WordPress or Blogger can be chosen for blogging. WordPress is a popular blogging platform which is used by 70% of the bloggers around the world. WordPress blog with customized Domain and Hosting incurs a cost of 3$-6$ monthly on an average depending on the bandwidth and other features.

Adaptability

Because people's interests often change over time, it is important for a successful marketer to stay up-to-date on current trends. By using free services, the niche blogger can quickly adapt to the changing market and create a new blog marketed to that niche.

Adaptability also refers to the ability to update the information on the niche blog at will. A great feature of blogs is the ability to add new articles on a daily, or more frequent, basis.

Also each post is akin to a stand-alone webpage allowing the blogger to create articles independent of each other.

Generating traffic

In order for a website to be profitable, it must have visitors. Normal websites require search engine optimization or paid advertisement in order to gain visitors. Blog services like Blogger, on the other hand, incorporate Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Using this technology, the niche blogger can inform various online directories of the blog's existence. They, in turn, provide links to the blog. Visitors to these directories are then exposed to the blog's listing and may choose to visit the blog. Thus, the directories act as a marketing tool for the niche blogger. Link exchange systems also allow bloggers to give and receive advertising clicks or views by the penny's-worth, without the imposed minimums of AdSense. Simpler still is the use of a Blogroll of similar blogs with some reciprocation.

Generating Revenue

Many blogs monetize their content using advertising. Certain niches tend to attract more advertisers than others. Therefore, choosing a blogging niche can be strategic decision that is intended to generate more advertising revenue for the creator. It is not uncommon for bloggers to change their niche based on the cost-per-click that they are able to garner from advertising networks. 2

See also

• Blogosphere
• FrolicPost
• BloggingMad

References